4 ms·

Exactly it doesn’t make sense. They are someone’s property and in my experience police follow a defined process and which would not include giving the car owner

Exactly it doesn’t make sense. They are someone’s property and in my experience police follow a defined process and which would not include giving the car owner the records. Perhaps the author is omitting a crucial detail to make the story more mysterious?

giarc 4y ago
I suspect the cop either had to keep them (and catalogue each individual record as evidence) or just let them walk and shrug his shoulders if someone can to claim them.
mkaic 4y ago
(author) This was my thought as well — honestly it's still kind of my thought. The best explanation I can come up with is that the records are stolen and can't be traced back to their owner, so they can't be returned? I'm not sure. If I found out who the original owner was I'd be happy to give them up.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  I don't know what standard of proof they use. Maybe it's too high and indeed impossible to be certain about the owner. But otherwise it just looks like they don't even want to try. In a normal small community police or you would try to find out who it belongs to, not just give up. :)
- lightedman 4y ago
  It's Los Angeles police; they're lazy, and anything that involves them not doing paperwork (as they'd have to catalogue every individual record there) is right up their alley. Homeless people defecating on the Metrolink right in front of an officer? Not an eyelash batted. I see this daily.
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
    Which is why I'm baffled when people make laws to make it harder to defend oneself, because you can "just call the police." But there's a solid chance they won't get there in time or at all, due to a variety of reasons including the above. LA is one of these places.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    If you were required to catalogue hundreds of records, taking many days, instead of being out catching criminals, would you? Just on the off chance that someone wants them back?
  - wikfwikf 4y ago
    What are you supposed to do about people who haven't got anywhere else to go to the toilet? If you place them in custody, you might as well provide them with some basic housing that costs less than jail. They have literally nothing to lose from fines, court dates, tickets, probation. They don't have a toilet, what else are you going to take away from them. The police are correctly judging that the need to defecate is not a criminal problem.
    - olalonde 4y ago
      > What are you supposed to do about people who haven't got anywhere else to go to the toilet? Find a public toilet or use a restaurant/shopping mall toilet.
      - wikfwikf 4y ago
        The question was not 'what do you do if you need the toilet?' but 'what do you do about people who haven't got anywhere to go to the toilet?' By definition, if there is a public toilet accessible to you, or you are welcome in a restaurant toilet without paying, you have somewhere to go to the toilet.
        olalonde 4y ago
        That's not an issue in LA though. In the wilderness, you can dig a small hole and do your business there.
    - lightedman 4y ago
      Every car on the Metrolink has a bathroom. There's no excuse for what I witness.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
dude187 4y ago
As others have said, it's largely all "junk", at least as far as value per record is concerned. So all they have is some stuff that _might_ have been stolen, with no knowledge of where they came from or who put them there. So what are they to do? Put a huge stack of records in the evidence locker with no crime actually attached to them (just vicinity to another crime)? Could suck if somehow someone else could identify them and want them that was also a victim of theft, but it really would just be stashing them and hoping by rare chance someone stumbles into the lost and found. Personally I'd rather the stack of stuff sitting in the guarded, expensive to maintain evidence locker is stuff actually tagged to a crime and relevant to solving it
notatoad 4y ago
i had a reply typed up about how the contents of a car shouldn't necessarily go to the police, and it would make sense that all the stuff found in a recovered car is assumed to be the posessions of the owner. but then i re-read the article and see "and then they grab a few of the thief’s personal items from the car as evidence.". so it's not like the cops were following some policy that all the stuff in the car should be returned to the car's owner. just the stuff they don't want to deal with

giarc 4y ago

I suspect the cop either had to keep them (and catalogue each individual record as evidence) or just let them walk and shrug his shoulders if someone can to claim them.

mkaic 4y ago

(author) This was my thought as well — honestly it's still kind of my thought. The best explanation I can come up with is that the records are stolen and can't be traced back to their owner, so they can't be returned? I'm not sure. If I found out who the original owner was I'd be happy to give them up.

kzrdude 4y ago
I don't know what standard of proof they use. Maybe it's too high and indeed impossible to be certain about the owner. But otherwise it just looks like they don't even want to try. In a normal small community police or you would try to find out who it belongs to, not just give up. :)
lightedman 4y ago
It's Los Angeles police; they're lazy, and anything that involves them not doing paperwork (as they'd have to catalogue every individual record there) is right up their alley. Homeless people defecating on the Metrolink right in front of an officer? Not an eyelash batted. I see this daily.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
  Which is why I'm baffled when people make laws to make it harder to defend oneself, because you can "just call the police." But there's a solid chance they won't get there in time or at all, due to a variety of reasons including the above. LA is one of these places.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  If you were required to catalogue hundreds of records, taking many days, instead of being out catching criminals, would you? Just on the off chance that someone wants them back?
- wikfwikf 4y ago
  What are you supposed to do about people who haven't got anywhere else to go to the toilet? If you place them in custody, you might as well provide them with some basic housing that costs less than jail. They have literally nothing to lose from fines, court dates, tickets, probation. They don't have a toilet, what else are you going to take away from them. The police are correctly judging that the need to defecate is not a criminal problem.
  - olalonde 4y ago
    > What are you supposed to do about people who haven't got anywhere else to go to the toilet? Find a public toilet or use a restaurant/shopping mall toilet.
    - wikfwikf 4y ago
      The question was not 'what do you do if you need the toilet?' but 'what do you do about people who haven't got anywhere to go to the toilet?' By definition, if there is a public toilet accessible to you, or you are welcome in a restaurant toilet without paying, you have somewhere to go to the toilet.
      - olalonde 4y ago
        That's not an issue in LA though. In the wilderness, you can dig a small hole and do your business there.
  - lightedman 4y ago
    Every car on the Metrolink has a bathroom. There's no excuse for what I witness.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

dude187 4y ago

As others have said, it's largely all "junk", at least as far as value per record is concerned. So all they have is some stuff that _might_ have been stolen, with no knowledge of where they came from or who put them there. So what are they to do? Put a huge stack of records in the evidence locker with no crime actually attached to them (just vicinity to another crime)? Could suck if somehow someone else could identify them and want them that was also a victim of theft, but it really would just be stashing them and hoping by rare chance someone stumbles into the lost and found. Personally I'd rather the stack of stuff sitting in the guarded, expensive to maintain evidence locker is stuff actually tagged to a crime and relevant to solving it

notatoad 4y ago

i had a reply typed up about how the contents of a car shouldn't necessarily go to the police, and it would make sense that all the stuff found in a recovered car is assumed to be the posessions of the owner. but then i re-read the article and see "and then they grab a few of the thief’s personal items from the car as evidence.". so it's not like the cops were following some policy that all the stuff in the car should be returned to the car's owner. just the stuff they don't want to deal with